BRUSSELS (AP) – International donors sought Wednesday to drum up billions of dollars in aid for war-ravaged Syria, as the U.N. Security Council readied for emergency talks over a suspected chemical attack that killed dozens in a rebel-held province.
Launching the conference in Brussels, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed for Syria’s warring factions and backers like Russia and Iran to set aside their differences and bring an end to a six-year conflict that has killed almost 400,000 people.
“Nobody is winning this war, everybody is losing,” Guterres said. “It is having a detrimental and destabilizing effect on the entire region and it is providing a focus that is feeding the new threat of global terrorism.”
Nearly half the Syrian population has been displaced by the violence, with millions seeking sanctuary in neighboring Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, or heading further west to Europe. U.N. agencies estimate war damage across Syria so far at $350 billion, including physical destruction and the loss of economic activity. Four out of five people are living in poverty.
“Behind these figures lies a gradual draining of hope and a turn toward despair that we must reverse,” Guterres said.